This week we partnered with University of Technology Sydney to host our second Asia Pacific News Working Group. A part of the Facebook Journalism Project, the group brings together 40 experts from Asia Pacific’s newsrooms, publishers, education institutions and third-party fact checking organizations to discuss and identify initiatives that will help people be more discerning consumers, creators and sharers of media.
Discussion highlights included third-party fact checking, community partnerships to encourage consumer literacy, ensuring editorial independence and the online safety of journalists. The group identified the challenges of building the skills and capacity of the region’s emerging and established newsrooms and the need to support trusted news sources in the region.
The group also heard from our inaugural APAC News Literacy Grant recipients, including:
- The University of Melbourne’s The Future Newsroom Report by University of Melbourne, which identified key challenges to the news industry and discussed changes in professional journalism and new business models.
- The Splice Newsroom, which shared how it has built a sustainable media business that captures Asia Pacific’s best practices in newsrooms, case studies, talent profiles, training and media entrepreneurship in the evolution of media.
- Taiwan Media Watch, a dedicated non-profit media monitoring organization that has developed a ranking system – based on two years of research – that evaluates stories on informativeness and accuracy.
- The University of Technology Sydney’s School of Communication research into ‘Falling in love again – what will it take for audiences to trust newsmakers again?’ which includes the development of a research resource focused on false news
The APAC News Literacy Working Group will continue to work to ensure we are able to support the region, and remain focused on building news literacy programs that ensure people gain the necessary skills and knowledge to consume, create and share media responsibly.